The life cycle of a product is generally traceable using logistics. Supply chain logistics often begin with the manufacturing of a product and generally govern the manner by which a product is made, sold, packaged, shipped, delivered, and inventoried under wholesale conditions. In addition, supply chain logistics may continue at the retail level where retailers store and display inventory for sale
One variable that may cause interruptions within a supply chain is human error. Human error can make it difficult to capture a true picture of a supply chain because a human error may propagate throughout the supply chain. For example, a miskeyed order for a pallet of products may affect a retailer's ability to shelve products, while the same error may result in collections issues for the wholesaler's accounts receivable. Numerous examples exist where human error negatively impacts supply chain logistics. The result of each human error is that logistics data is increasingly difficult to find, sort, and verify. Even if data is readily available, human error may render the data unreliable. Data availability and reliability may be negatively affected until an error is located and repaired; however, locating an error may require expensive data analysis. To increase efficiency and accuracy in a supply chain, there has been an effort to automate many tasks that are susceptible to human error, thus, minimizing avoidable costs.
Furthermore, loss prevention (preventing goods being damaged, stolen, mishandled, misidentified, or misplaced) and marketing/advertising (e.g. displaying advertisements for goods, pricing, price changes, etc.) are considerations in supply chain logistics. Loss prevention can be detrimentally affected by human error, accounting issues at the front end and/or the back end of a supply chain, and a lack of security for the goods being transported in the supply chain. Marketing/advertising costs can reduce profits for sellers and other supply chain entities. For example, creating and changing displays for goods, and associating prices and price changes to goods, can be labor intensive and thus costly endeavors.
Therefore, systems and methods to reduce the opportunity for human error affecting supply chain data and/or to cost effectively increase loss prevention and marketing/advertising are desirable.